


Wish I Never Left

by scentedglitter



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Celebrity, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-07 17:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17370653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scentedglitter/pseuds/scentedglitter
Summary: Beca hasn’t talked to Chloe for three years, and she’s about to release a song admitting that was a mistake.An extended, multi-chapter version of my Bechloe Week 2018 Day 4 oneshot. Light on plot, heavy on fluff.





	1. The Past and Release

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1 is identical to Day 4 of Bechloe Week 2018: Let's Pretend It's Canon. I wrote a few chapters of this months ago and held back on posting it for no real reason. Chapter 2 will be up immediately so this isn't just a repost.

It’s been three years since Beca talked to Chloe.

The USO tour that was supposed to bring all the Bellas together for one last chance to sing as a group had, technically, been good for Beca. She’d just quit her job because dear _god_ she did not want to be associated with the sexist trash that was coming out of the artists at the place she was working, and it gave her a bit over a month to hang out with her closest friends. And, at the end, she was suddenly signed to a legitimate label with an impressive reputation.

She tried to convince them to let her stay based in New York, so she could stay with her roommates – well, Amy was leaving anyway, but Chloe – but she was a new signing and had no power over her contract. It was a contract that forced her to record and work in LA, and she so badly wanted to say no. She wasn’t ready to move out into the world and have to do it entirely by herself, but she would’ve been stupid to say no and she’d be lying if she said the six-digit number at the end of the expected earnings section wasn’t the major factor in her decision.

So, Beca had moved to LA. By herself. Every other Bella was on the east coast (until Stacie had moved to California two years after Beca did), and Chloe? Well, she wasn’t really sure where Chloe was. She knew her once best friend had got into vet school, but she forgot to ask which vet school, and two weeks after moving out of their pokey studio apartment – while Chloe was still there – Beca had made somewhat of a drastic decision and cut all contact with Chloe.

At her first meeting with the record label, Beca had been asked if she wrote songs at all, or she wanted to just use songs that other people wrote, and if so, what they should be like.

“Uh I… write sometimes? I’m not sure if it’s any good, I’ve only ever shown things I’ve produced, not written, to anyone in the industry,” she had responded, attempting to answer professionally after her original hesitation.

In response, she’d been asked to prepare an example of something she’d written in a weeks’ time for another meeting, and they’d come prepared with samples of songs other people had written that they thought would suit her. They were really rushing this album process.

Beca scrolled through, and scrapped, every song draft on her laptop hard drive. It was much easier – indeed, she had no trouble at all – to write a new song. There were a lot of thoughts spiralling around her mind in the aftermath of the USO tour and her sudden and unexpected departure from the comfortable habits she’d fallen into living with Amy and Chloe, and they flowed clearly out onto the page as she wrote away.

The problem was that it meant those thoughts were no longer contained in Beca’s mind for only her viewing. They were out in the open, where someone else could see them. Someone else that they may or may not be about, in the case of Chloe.

Chloe messaged Beca every second day asking how things were going in LA and complaining about how empty their apartment felt with just her and Amy in it – as if that tiny apartment could ever feel empty – and Beca enthusiastically responded the first few times, until suddenly she realised that this song writing thing was a part she should probably hide from Chloe. So, she didn’t say she was writing songs – just that she was waiting on them to give her songs. She assumed the label would say hers sucked and she should go with theirs instead, and then she could go back to telling Chloe everything and pretend the whole “writing more than one song about how in love with her best friend she was” thing had never happened.

Her second meeting came around, and she handed over printed copies of lyrics and approximate melodies she’d figured for two of the songs she’d written when her manager – thankfully, not Theo, after she’d threatened to formally accuse him of sexual harassment if he made a move on her again (because that’s what it was) – and the two producers sitting alongside him asked. She sat in awkward silence, watching as they glanced over them.

“These are quite good! With not too much polishing up you could definitely have a go at recording these to test out if they might feature on an album or EP release,” one of the producers had enthused after five minutes, and Beca’s heart sank.

That night, Beca had a panic attack. She used to have them more than she had in recent years – although she’d screamed at Amy about her job issues in the middle of one not long before the USO tour – but she’d kind of expected it to happen, given as soon as she stepped out of the meeting at 4:30pm her thoughts had started to spiral.

If she recorded one of those songs about Chloe, they could be released. And if they were released, there was absolutely no way that Chloe wouldn’t realise they were about her because the lyrics weren’t exactly coy.

She started to pace rhythmically back and forth across her apartment as soon as she stepped in the door, her belongings thrown straight on the bed. She hoped the pacing rhythm would enforce a similar order in her mind, but they just fuelled the racing spiral instead.

If Chloe heard one of those songs and realised they were about her – which she _certainly would_ – it would be the end of their friendship. Chloe wouldn’t be rude or freak out about it, Beca knew that wasn’t in her nature, but she’d be kind and let Beca down gently and tell her she only thought of her as a friend. And that would destroy her even more than if Chloe freaked out at her.

Beca couldn’t stop pacing, now, and she couldn’t stop thinking, and she’d lost control of the speed of her breathing-

Beca wouldn’t survive Chloe softly destroying her like that. She couldn’t survive being in contact with her, or any of the Bellas, or anyone associated with that period in her life, and that was almost everyone in her life. She couldn’t live without any social contact forever and she couldn’t live in eternal misery over her best friend, and as much as she hated it, she was doing just fine holding onto her feelings for Chloe and not letting Chloe anywhere near them.

There was no way Chloe wouldn’t find out, though. She’d listen to anything Beca released. She’d listen to the songs, and then she’d figure it out. She’d let Beca down, and Beca would be destroyed. What part of that chain could she break? She couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t be released because she didn’t have that control. She couldn’t stop Chloe listening to it. She couldn’t stop her figuring it out. She couldn’t change how Chloe would respond. She couldn’t do anything-

Beca paused, suddenly, staring at her laptop bag on her bed. Could she prevent Chloe from responding?

She ripped open the zip of the bag with such force that the tab snapped, but she hardly noticed. She slammed the laptop out onto the bed so quickly it would’ve broken on any other surface. The hinges stopped the screen that she threw back, the laptop falling backwards for half a second from the force before Beca grabbed the front of the keyboard to right it, furiously tapping the internet browser.

Facebook was her homepage. She had a message from Chloe. She didn’t read it. She tried not to look at Chloe’s profile – her profile picture of the two of them in France just four weeks ago – as she hit unfriend, and block. She closed Facebook.

Twitter was next, and easier, because Chloe’s profile was relatively empty. She rarely used Twitter. Beca blocked her anyway.

She pulled up google, quickly searching “ _how to block a phone number iphone_ ”. Clicking the first link, she reached for her phone, pulling open Instagram while it loaded. Block. Glancing up at the screen, it still hadn’t loaded. She opened WhatsApp. Blocked.

The tutorial loaded, and Beca glanced through it, performing the steps as she read them, not taking any notice that iMessage told her Chloe was currently typing in their conversation. Blocked.

Beca didn’t know how much she was shaking or how much her heart was racing until she placed her phone back down on the bed and felt her body start to calm down.

She had taken a shower to continue the calming process, digging out a Bluetooth speaker to bring into the bathroom with her so she could sing along to something angry and drown out any thoughts that wanted to start spiralling again.

After her shower, Beca found her phone alive with a handful of messages from other Bellas asking why Chloe was freaking out that she’d disappeared. She pulled open Facebook and made a group chat, typing out some lie about a personal disagreement and Beca deciding she needed space. She left the chat as soon as she said it, not waiting for a reaction, and then for good measure, ran through and blocked Aubrey on everything too.

She’s barely talked to any of the Bellas in three years, save for the occasional congratulations message as her career skyrocketed around her, Beca barely able to catch her breath as she watched it happen.

The first song she wrote about Chloe was her first single, and her manager had tried to hand over a phone call from Aubrey twelve hours after it was released, but she quickly clued in her whole team that she would be taking no messages from anyone named Aubrey or Chloe. It took a few days before the single gained wider attention – and a fair bit of promotional work from herself and the label – but when it did, she suddenly found everything change in an instant. Number one in America. Number one in Canada. Number one in ten countries. Number one in thirty countries-

Her album came a month later, and there was no delay before that one shot to number one too. Every song on that album was about Chloe, but Beca didn’t like to acknowledge that very often.

“You put so much emotion into so many of these songs, is there something in particular you’re drawing on?” she had been asked on many a talk show, hosts digging for gossip that’d boost their ratings up.

“There’s not really anything specific, I think these are just such an integral part of the human condition that I can draw into that… I wanted my songs to appeal to everyone-“ her answer was always the same rehearsed excuse.

Beca had celebrated her one-year anniversary of cutting contact with Chloe in Seoul, South Korea, at the start of the second leg of her world tour. She’d already covered North America, and now was on to Australasia, and then Europe, then South America and more in North America because all the first ones sold out too quickly. The problem, of course, was not where she was – it was that she remembered at all.

Beca knew her image as a public figure suffered at least a little bit because she was so withdrawn, but singing all these songs so often was draining. She was bad around people at the best of times, let alone when her mind was constantly spiralling with regret and “what ifs” and loneliness. She pulled back as much as she could, limiting her appearances to those only contractually required and keeping her (new) social media accounts purely professional.

During her North American tour, she had happened to be back in LA for awards season. Her manager claimed it wasn’t planned – she still didn’t believe him – and, reluctantly, she’d attended the shows. She got all dressed up (she didn’t _entirely_ hate that part because her stylist was fantastic) and she walked the red carpet alone and politely answered the dubiously appropriate outfit and relationship questions from the reporters.

She won a Billboard award she didn’t remember the category name of, a VMA, a GRAMMY. She had just enough alcohol at each show to enjoy the night and still be coherent for a thank-you speech – thanking her team, her fans, and without names, her “friends and family” – and the compulsory press afterwards.

She liked being on the road, because it kept her busy and it kept her mind off things. At least, it probably would have had all her music not been about the thing she was trying to forget. She took solace in a strange conversation she’d had with Pink backstage at the Billboard awards, where Pink – “call me Alecia” – had asked if the stuff about ‘no particular inspiration’ was bullshit, and Beca had reluctantly admitted that yeah, it was.

“If it’s any solace,” Alecia had started, with a reassuring smile, “I find that by the end of a touring cycle, I’ve usually worked through all the issues that got covered in that album.”

The two-year anniversary of Beca cutting contact with Chloe came not far from the end of her tour cycle, when Beca was settling back in to a quiet and reclusive life in a much larger LA apartment than she had been in before her album was released, and immediately disproved that theory. She still wasn’t over it.

Beca didn’t ask for time off, but she was given it. Six months that she had no idea what to do with. She took an online Spanish course and taught herself to cook a little more than the basics she already knew, because it felt like self-improvement, and it was a decent distraction.

For her second album, they allotted a full six months of production time, and she wondered why until she entered her first meeting with the now-familiar team she’d worked with last time after her break and was surprised to see one of the producers missing. They usually had the same number for each album, or so she’d been told.

“You get to help produce this time,” her manager had revealed, and Beca couldn’t help but genuinely smile. _This_ was what she wanted to do.

They took their time with the second album, no release date or singles set even five months into the project. It had been only two weeks ago when Beca had suddenly felt a wave of desire to do _something_ about Chloe wash over her. She wrote another song, because it was all she knew how to do, and immediately told her team that this would be the first single.

To her surprise, they didn’t fight. They helped her polish, record and produce the song in ten days, and convince the label to let her do a surprise drop and only promote it after it was released.

Beca hasn’t talked to Chloe for three years, and she’s about to release a song admitting that was a mistake. A song basically begging Chloe to tell her where they stand, even if it’s that Chloe hates her guts now.

Beca doesn’t have to do anything for the release. Someone else who has joint control over all her social media is handling the announcement at 6pm on a Sunday, a stupid time to release a song, but almost exactly three years since she had almost broken her old laptop in her haste to cut contact with Chloe.

In hindsight, she was bloody lucky she didn’t break anything, given she hadn’t been in the financial position to be able to replace that laptop with something good enough for her job until a year later when she’d finally seen some of the money her music was making.

She tries to occupy her mind with useless shit like that all evening, to not go online. She cooks a rather elaborate meal and convinces herself to clean the kitchen properly after she finishes eating it, although she has cleaners that do her apartment every two weeks anyway. It’s after nine by the time she finishes, which isn’t nearly late enough.

She has a shower, does a face mask, washes her hair, hoping anything will relax her enough to go to sleep.

She’s too agitated. She can’t do it.

At 9am the next morning, she walks in to the studio she’s been working at, head down and way more makeup than usual on to hide the rather obvious signs of her sleepless night. There’s a few paparazzi around as always but they aren’t too pushy.

“There’s someone waiting in your office for you,” the receptionist calls out as Beca walks through, and she nods and gives her a smile in acknowledgement. She gets the same message from her almost every morning and without fail it is always her manager. He’s punctual, if anything.

She’s confused when she runs into him in the hallway between the elevator and her office.

“Oh, hi Beca, song’s going great!” he enthuses, and Beca forces a smile – she is happy, just tired – and nods.

“That’s good, good. Do we want to keep working on promotional aspects for the album today?” she asks, hoping he says yes. Stupid arguments about colours are much more her speed today than anything serious.

“Um, we’ll see how things go, but sure,” he answers, and Beca shrugs, too tired to think any further of his demeanour.

Her head is down when she enters her office, fiddling with her keys, one having got tangled in a stupid keyring one of the producers had given her a while ago as it often does, not remembering there was someone in her office until she spies a pair of shoes ahead of her, causing her eyes to snap up.

“Beca-“ Chloe starts, and Beca immediately lets go of the door handle, letting it slam shut behind her as she takes a step to the side, crumpling into a heap on the couch beside the door, burying her face in her hands as she starts to shake, tears pooling against her cheeks where her hands are trapping them.

She lets out an audible sob when she feels the other side of the couch dip and notices the familiar scent of Chloe’s perfume waft over her.

She’s not quite sure how she responds when Chloe wraps an arm around her, because her brain shuts down and all logical thought disappears. Chloe is here. Chloe is in her office. Chloe is holding her.

“Why are you here?” Beca asks, five minutes later, between sobs. She still can’t bring herself to look up at Chloe again, but she can feel her crying against her shoulder.

“Because you asked me to be, and I will go anywhere for you,” Chloe answers, her voice choked.

“I only released that song fifteen hours ago.”

“Stacie had contact details for the label,” Chloe responds, as an explanation.

“Where do you even live?”

“Florida.”

“How are you here?” Beca asks, her mind still stuttering, struggling to process everything that’s happening.

“It was surprisingly easy to get to your manager, and I asked him if he could at least pass on a message for me or give me your current number or something… and he said he knew who I was and that he could give me your address, if I wanted it. That felt like too much. I asked him if you’d be working today and he said yes so I booked a flight and… here I am.”

“Why are you here?” Beca repeats her earlier question, softer, her crying starting to calm down as she finally looks up and, as Chloe pulls back slightly, meets her eyes.

“Why did you cut contact with me, Beca?” Chloe questions in return. Beca sighs, trying to find the words to explain.

“In that first week they asked me to write songs… and I did, and they were all about you, and when they said they were good I freaked out because if they were going to be released – and they were – you’d know they were about you and you’d have to tell me you’d only ever like me as a friend and I didn’t think I could take that. I panicked. It was the only way I knew how to deal with it.”

“I tried to convince myself they weren’t about me. That someone else wrote them and it was all just a coincidence but I… knew it was you. And I wanted to contact you, because I needed to tell you how much I love you, but I couldn’t. And I tried to be mad at you, but I couldn’t…” Chloe trails off, and Beca stares at her, not believing she just heard what she did. Thankfully, Chloe repeats it, “I’m in love with you, Beca. I always have been. If you still want me- if you still want something between us, I’m here so that could happen. And I’m not leaving. I’ll move to California today.”

“What about vet school?” Beca asks, not able to process anything else.

“I overloaded my courses to occupy my time and stop thinking about you. I have one course left and I can finish it online.”

“You’re moving to California? For me?”

“Yes, Beca.”

“I love you so much,” Beca rushes out, her mind finally catching up as she throws herself against Chloe, arms wrapping tightly around her, tears forming around her eyes again but this time in happiness. “I love you so much and I’m so happy you’re here and I never want to be away from you again.”

“Your people told me you can have today off. Can we go back to your place and talk? We have three years of catching up to do and I want to hear everything,” Chloe’s response is soft and affectionate and Beca feels like she is melting into a pile of happiness.

“Yeah… I should clean up my face,” Beca reluctantly pulls back from her, gesturing to the lines of makeup that have run down her cheeks, scowling when Chloe giggles. “I still don’t usually wear this much, but I didn’t sleep last night.”

It doesn’t surprise Beca when Chloe stands up, walks over to her bag lying beside Beca’s desk and pulls out a pack of makeup remover wipes, quickly moving back over to sit beside Beca. It also doesn’t surprise her when Chloe cups one hand under Beca’s chin and starts tidying her makeup for her.

“Wait,” Beca says, and Chloe recoils quickly, clearly worried she crossed a line. “No, not that…” Beca trails off, before mumbling, “it’s just that your hands on my face is making me cry happy tears again.”

Chloe visibly relaxes, smiling softly as she hands the makeup wipe over to Beca and stands up again, walking over and picking up her bag.

“Did you like… bring a suitcase or something?” Beca asks, awkwardly, as she pulls out her phone to use as a mirror as she finishes at least kind of wiping the mascara from around her eyes. She really should use waterproof like… all the time.

“Nope. I figured if it didn’t go well I’d fly home again, and if it did I’ll just steal some of your stuff.”

“Oh you haven’t changed then,” Beca grins, Chloe just laughing and shaking her head as she watches Beca scrunch up the makeup wipe and throw it into a bin beside the couch, standing up and shoving her phone back in her pocket. “Come on, let’s go to my place.”

Beca takes Chloe’s hand as she pushes open the door of her office and they both walk out into the hallway, and she doesn’t let go. Not when they stop by her manager’s office so Beca can say she’s taking the day off – she chooses to ignore the sly grin he gives in response -, not when they sneak out a side door to Beca’s car. Briefly, to get in the car, but Beca quickly joins their hands again after she’s on the road, silently thanking her past self for sticking with an automatic so she doesn’t need to change gears.

To Beca’s surprise, Chloe doesn’t comment on the car, and when they arrive at her apartment she doesn’t comment on the presence of security guards around the car park entrance, or the fact that the elevator opens directly into what is evidently a large penthouse apartment. Beca sees Chloe glance at the awards shelf off to the side of the entry – as out of the way as Beca could justify putting it without hiding them – but she doesn’t comment.

“Why aren’t you saying anything about all the… weird fancy shit?” Beca asks, cautiously, after they’ve stepped into her open-plan living area.

“I’m going to need like, half an hour to properly tell you how proud of you I am for the awards and evidently earning enough money for all of this but I… you’re still Beca. I know that car cost a shitton, but it’s not the slightest bit externally flashy and it’s so you. I feel bad for commenting on your apartment, though, because of what I want to say…” she trails off.

“Just say it,” Beca answers, softly, knowing what it will be, because she feels it too.

“It’s beautiful, but it’s… empty. It doesn’t look like you live here.”

“I don’t know what to do with this much space when it’s just me. I don’t exactly have many… friends. Stacie’s been here, she was kind of bugging me to hang out when she moved to San Francisco and she’s fun so I couldn’t say no. But I’m alone a lot, and I’ve just kind of made my bedroom look like mine and left everything else as… whatever. I use the kitchen a bit though.”

“You know who you’re reminding me of?” Chloe asks, rhetorically, wandering further into the apartment and across to the kitchen. “Damn, I’d love to cook here.”

“It’s good. I taught myself to cook properly when I had six months off earlier this year.”

“You better cook something amazing for me sometime soon, then.”

“I definitely will. Who am I reminding you of?”

“Freshman Beca.”

Beca watches Chloe turn back to face her, and she nods, sighing.

“I am a bit, yeah, but… I know I shouldn’t be, this time. And I’m about to do something that will probably surprise you and that freshman Beca certainly wouldn’t do…”

Chloe raises an eyebrow, indicating for Beca to continue.

“I am extremely tired, I am overwhelmed, and I want nothing more than to lie down with you and talk about everything like we used to in New York. Come on,” Beca requests, softly, holding out a hand that Chloe quickly takes, allowing herself to be lead into Beca’s bedroom, immediately noticing that it is way more Beca than the rest of the house.

“Are you going to fall asleep on me?” Chloe asks, smiling lightly as Beca falls down on the bed with a long, tired sigh.

“No, I’m going to cuddle you and make you tell me about vet school.”

“Really? Not telling me about your crazy life, just my boring vet school?” Chloe asks, a teasing lilt to her voice as she takes off her shoes and settles down on the bed, lying on her side and facing Beca. “How do you still have a terrible mattress?”

“We can do both, if you’d like, but my life is actually very boring and repetitive. And I can’t answer that without sounding pathetic,” Beca’s response is light, but there’s a tone under it that makes Chloe push closer.

“Tell me?” she whispers, as Beca curls against her.

“You were always the one that wanted a softer mattress for our crappy fold-out bed, and I couldn’t bear to get one without you being involved somehow. I still feel like you haven’t realised how obsessively in love with you I am and when you do you’ll get creeped out and leave…” Beca trails off.

“Beca, did you not hear me say I am uprooting my life and moving across the country for you with absolutely no planning or preparation? That I’ve been in love with you forever? I really do mean forever. I mean since I’ve met you. I’ve been in love with you for ten years. I’m still in love with you. I’ll always be in love with you…” Chloe trails off, pulling Beca closer to her.

“Move in with me. I know it’s too soon. I know I haven’t even asked you to be my girlfriend yet, but… move in with me, and we’ll buy a proper mattress, and we can make this apartment our home,” Beca’s voice is determined, but Chloe can feel her shaking slightly with nerves.

“Okay,” Chloe answers, simply, before moving her arm as if indicating for Beca to turn to face her. “And I want you to be my girlfriend. Yeah, we have a lot of catching up to do. But we’re us. We don’t need to wait.”

“Okay,” Beca answers much the same, smiling widely as Chloe tentatively shifts her face closer. When Chloe’s nose brushes against Beca’s, her face only a breath away, Beca quickly bites her lip to control her smile before she closes the remaining space between them and presses her lips against Chloe’s for the first time.


	2. The Catch Up

Beca is beyond tired, but she doesn’t feel like falling asleep in the slightest. After their first kiss breaks, both of them smiling too hard to continue, they pull apart slightly and fall into the kind of comfortable conversation that they have always found. It doesn’t stop for hours, and Beca can’t stop smiling.

Chloe tells her about vet school: about the frustratingly easy basic theory courses and the slightly more interesting stuff later on, and the fact that she decided very early on that she would focus on small-animal practice because dealing with agricultural animals was less cute and caring and more… messy and focussed on commercial outputs. Also, she wasn’t keen on moving to a small town after she graduated to work with that kind of clinic.

Chloe explains that she had two compulsory practical internships, and after her second one the previous semester at a veterinary clinic that focussed on domestic animal rescue she’d been offered and taken on a part-time job with them.

“I’ll have to call them tomorrow, I guess, and quit. I warned them my few days off might turn into forever,” she muses, and Beca feels a wave of guilt wash over her.

“It sounds like such a perfect job for you though…”

“Yeah, but I’ll ask them if they know anywhere similar here and I’m sure I’ll find something eventually,” Chloe shrugs, “and even if I don’t, being with you beats any job. Even if I’m paranoid it’ll seem like I’m just here to… live off your money.”

“Part of me is surprised Amy has never turned up here trying to do that…” Beca jokes, referring to the very uneven share of financial contribution to their apartment back in Brooklyn. “I know you’re not, though. And, hey, I probably owe you half of it for inspiration and being the entire reason I’m not still freshman Beca, so…”

Chloe just smiles and shakes her head, pausing for a moment to revel in the affection Beca is giving, until Beca asks her next question, about Chloe’s vet school friends. She shrugs, admitting that she has a few but they aren’t close, and as much as they knew that she was once in an acapella group with _the_ Beca Mitchell, she always downplayed their friendship so they wouldn’t ask questions. The Bellas were still her closest friends, Aubrey still her best friend.

“Do the Bellas all know you’re here?” Beca asks, surprised when Chloe shakes her head.

“I told Stacie I couldn’t get through on the details she gave me, and I’ve ignored everyone else since last night. I wanted to see how things went,” her response is soft, and Beca lets out a quiet acknowledging hum before she speaks.

“Does Aubrey hate me now? Or, I guess, again?”

“No. She got mad at you when you shut everyone out, but when you started releasing things and I admitted I wasn’t mad at you, just kind of… regretful that I’d not said something before you left, she calmed down too.”

“She doesn’t even know you’re here?”

“No. Only you do. Should we tell them?” Chloe changes the topic, slightly, testing the waters.

“I miss the Bellas. Yeah. Is there still a group chat?” Beca asks, Chloe nodding in affirmation as she grabs her phone from beside her. Beca rolls away from Chloe to grab her own phone off the side table, rolling back onto her side facing her, mostly so Chloe doesn’t see what she’s doing as she quickly pulls up all the apps to unblock, and add, her. Chloe can’t help but laugh when she sees a Facebook friend request from “Beca Fakename”.

“Really? That’s your Facebook name now?” she asks, and Beca raises an eyebrow before she remembers.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. It’s a privacy thing that surprisingly works. I don’t get fans finding me with that…”

Chloe quickly accepts the request, as she opens up the Bellas chat with hundreds of unread messages, quickly realising that Beca’s song and her whereabouts are the topic of conversation, and probably have been all day.

“I’m going to mess with them a little before I add you back in the chat, that cool?” Chloe asks, Beca agreeing enthusiastically, shifting closer when Chloe motions for her to look at the phone screen with her.

“ _I’m in LA, guys, chill_ ,” Chloe sends, as Stacie and Aubrey realise she’s online and start asking where she is.

“ _LA????”_ Stacie responds, the rest of the girls present coming in with shocked emojis.

“ _Yep! Got here this morning ;P_ ” Chloe quickly types out, watching as the responses pour in.

“ _What’re you doing there?????”_ Aubrey copies Stacie’s excessive question mark use, and Chloe smiles to herself.

“ _Oh, you know, just LA things_ ”

“ _Like what?? Celebrity tours? Beaches? Quitting your job to try and be an actress?”_ Stacie teases.

“ _I mean, I’m in a pretty famous person’s apartment_ ,” Chloe hits send before turning her attention away from her phone, not waiting for the inevitably overboard response.

“You still like pretending you’re a badass and too cool for cuddles in front of them, or can I send them a photo?” She asks, Beca simply shifting closer so her head is nestled against Chloe’s shoulder, gesturing towards the phone’s camera.

Chloe takes the photo, glancing affectionately as Beca as she does, not realising Beca looks over at her too until she looks back up and sees it on her screen. It’s cheesy as hell, so she saves it to her camera roll before sending it to the group chat without any comment, immediately adding Beca in to the group.

The chat explodes with messages, largely jumbles of nonsensical letters and wide-eyed emojis, Stacie quickly tagging everyone that isn’t there right now to try and get them to appear.

“ _Hi to you guys too_ ,” Beca types, feeling herself blush when everyone heart-eyes reacts the message.

“ _Beca’s back?!”_ Jessica asks, and Beca tries to quickly type out something… decent. She owes them all an apology.

“ _I fucked up, and I miss you all and I’m still as pathetically in love with Chloe as you all knew I was in college and definitely know if you’ve heard my music, so… I’m trying to un-fuck up everything._ ”

 _“How is Chloe in LA though?!?”_ Aubrey asks, as the others all give encouraging messages to Beca.

“ _I got to work this morning and she was in my office,”_ Beca types, in response.

“ _So Beca + Chloe is a thing now?”_ Amy asks the next question, suddenly appearing despite her earlier absence from the conversation.

“ _If “a thing” means dating then yeah_ ,” Chloe provides the answer, Beca nuzzling her face against Chloe’s cheek in response as she drops her phone back on the bed beside her.

They leave the Bellas to talk amongst themselves not long later, preferring to go back into their private bubble in Beca’s bedroom, Beca continuing to ask Chloe everything she can think of about her life over the previous three years.

They order takeout for dinner, and when it arrives – Chloe raising an eyebrow at Beca when a doorman brings it up to her apartment, Beca simply shrugging it off – they reluctantly shift out into the dining room, Chloe pausing to once again examine Beca’s kitchen before she follows her girlfriend (she’s going to keep mentally referring to her that way until it sinks in, she thinks) and sits down across from her at the light wood table.

“Will you let me ask about your last three years, now?” Chloe pushes, as Beca pulls the lid off her burrito bowl.

“Yeah. I promise I’m not trying to hide anything, it’s just…” Beca shrugs, not sure what she’s trying to say, but Chloe nods as if she understands anyway, and Beca figures she probably does. Chloe’s always had this strangely comforting ability to read Beca’s mind before even she can.

“I’ll start with something difficult, then… What’s changed between now and three years ago?” Chloe asks, leaning back in her chair, not sure how Beca will respond. To her surprise, she looks up at the ceiling for a moment as if trying to think through an answer.

“I’m more comfortable in front of people because I have to be, but otherwise I don’t feel like I’ve really… changed much. Otherwise, though… People know my name, I have a public image I have to care about, and paparazzi follow me everywhere. And I get takeout less often. My job is crazy and I’ve ended up doing some weird things because of it, but day-to-day, I don’t do much differently.”

“That makes sense,” Chloe nods, taking a moment to phrase her next question. “Will I feature in your public image?”

“It’s… kind of up to you, although honestly, it’d be difficult to make that a no. A lot because of the paparazzi. Like, I literally want to go mattress shopping with you tomorrow but I released a song yesterday so there will definitely be people following me. Right now, no one knows I live here, but they know my car. Also I have to do the LA talk show circuit next week and I will definitely be asked who that song was about.”

“I’m okay with being part of your image as long as it means I can be cutesy about you and help break down that ‘maybe an asshole’ reputation you’ve got,” Chloe jokes, Beca laughing lightly.

“If you don’t mind, I’d kind of like to… Instagram, maybe, something tonight? I want to have the first word that you are the girl I always sing about and yeah,” Beca admits.

“I’d be okay with that. I can send you the picture we took for the Bellas earlier, if you want.”

“That’d be perfect. I already have a caption in mind…” she turns hesitant.

“Oh?”

“It’s insanely cheesy but it’s a tie in to the song that could become another verse when I perform it live…”

“I love the sound of that.”

“So you know the hook is like… wish I never left, love of my life?” Beca starts, awkwardly, not used to trying to enunciate her writing process, “it’d be instead… like I never left, your hand back in mine”

She is worried, for a minute, when Chloe stands from her chair, until she’s suddenly leaning down and tangling her fingers in Beca’s hair as she pulls her into a firm kiss.

“I take it you like it?” Beca prompts when Chloe pulls back from the kiss and shifts to sit on her lap.

“It’s one thing to hear you on the radio singing things that I theoretically guess are about me. It’s entirely different to be sitting in front of you hearing you say them directly to me,” Chloe explains, almost shy, arms falling to wrap loosely around Beca’s neck.

“Remind me to say them to you more often,” Beca teases, before softening her voice, “I want to say them to you. You deserve to hear every good thing I’ve ever wanted to say to you. I love you so much.” Beca tightens one arm around Chloe’s back in a hug, lifting the other to gently cup her cheek, thumb stroking across below her cheekbone.

“Can I ask you something?” Chloe asks, carefully, leaning into Beca’s touch.

“Yeah.”

“What happened to hating affection? Not that I’m complaining, but... you’re not, which is different.”

“I still hate affection,” Beca starts, thumb still stroking across Chloe’s cheek as she pulls her into an even tighter hug, their noses almost brushing against each other. “It’s fake, and awkward, and I have my own personal space. But none of that applies to you, and honestly...” Beca sighs, closing her eyes for a moment as if to gather her thoughts. “It’s never applied to you. When I used to flinch away from your hugs it was because I was terrified of how much I liked you hugging me, not because I didn’t want you to. You were always different.”

“I was never breaking down your walls?” Chloe asks, softly, and Beca shrugs.

“You still had to convince me to let you use the door that was there for you,” Beca answers.

Chloe takes a moment, biting her lip, and Beca can’t help but lean forward and press their lips together.

“Our dinner is going to get cold,” Chloe mumbles when the kiss breaks some time later.

“You’re the one that jumped on my lap.”

Chloe just grins in response, reluctantly shifting back across the table to her own seat as they finish their dinner.

They find themselves in the living room later in the evening, and Beca is quietly impressed at how much nicer her apartment feels just with Chloe present. She never uses the living room, really - it’s too empty - but evidently all it needed was someone to share it with. A very particular someone.

“Are you really moving here?” Beca asks, head resting against Chloe’s collarbone as their conversation naturally pauses.

“Yeah. I don’t really have any reasons not to and you are a huge reason to be here. I guess I have to head back to pack up my stuff to bring it over though...” she trails off, mind turning to logistics. “I guess I may as well book a flight and do it soon. Might have to sell my car too, easier than bringing it over here...”

“Would it be weird if I went over with you to help?” Beca’s question is awkward, but Chloe quickly shakes her head, so she continues, “don’t worry about booking anything then. I’ll work out private. Where do you actually live?”

“Orlando.”

“Disney. Perfect for you.”

“I haven’t actually been there...” Chloe trails off, Beca shifting to look at her in shock.

“Why not?”

“It’s expensive and no one wanted to go with me.”

“Wanna go to Disney World this weekend?” Beca asks, grinning, and Chloe laughs.

“Can you do that, or will people swarm you?”

“I can do it. Disguise, and no one expects me to be outside LA because it’s well known I rarely leave my house.”

“Let’s do it.”

They don’t tire of conversation well into the night, finding more to catch up on and ask each other than they expected, although both admit that it makes sense. They’ve always been like this, even when they were living with each other at Barden and in New York.

“We should probably sleep. How long have you been awake?” Beca asks, sometime around 3am.

“Uh, like 30 hours. Yeah,” Chloe answers, “I don’t wanna move though.”

Beca can’t help but laugh lightly at her statement, looking over the tangled position they’ve ended up in, pressed as close to each other as possible. She shifts, pulling Chloe up with her and letting her lean heavily into her side as they amble into Beca’s bedroom.

“I love you so much Beca. Thank you for letting me back in,” Chloe whispers as they both start to drift off, again tangled together to remain close.

“Thank you for responding,” Beca mumbles, as they both drift into a comfortable sleep.


	3. The Mornings

Beca often didn’t want to get out of bed of a morning. This morning, however, she really did not want to move in the slightest. In New York, she’d grown used to waking up beside Chloe – sometimes even in Chloe’s arms, or with Chloe in hers – and it had taken weeks of tossing and turning through broken hours of sleep when she first moved away to be able to sleep without her.

She felt Chloe turn beside her, Beca messily shifting her arms around and pulling Chloe against her, in the hope it would stop her from moving away.

“Good morning to you to,” she hears Chloe mumble, clearly having only just woken up herself, and Beca just sighs, placing a kiss on the closest part of her she can reach – her shoulder, she thinks – as she tries to wake up enough to speak.

“G’morning,” she whispers, not able to stop the soft smile on her face when she slowly cracks one eye open and sees red hair splayed all over the pillow in front of her.

“Can we just stay here?” Chloe asks, voice still low.

“Mmm,” Beca’s response is more a noise than words, as she nuzzles against her shoulder again. Chloe sighs happily, and they both hold their positions for an amount of time neither really cares enough to measure.

“You know, I love waking up next to you,” Chloe starts, breaking their comfortable silence, “but jesus you need a better mattress.”

“I know,” Beca’s response is a long sigh, as she regretfully pulls away slightly so she can encourage Chloe to turn and face her.

“We going to buy one today?”

“Yeah, we should. And like… do you want to go to Florida today?”

“Are you still coming with me?” Chloe’s expression turns almost vulnerable, as if she regrets asking, so Beca rushes her reply.

“Yeah, of course! I have to be in New York on Thursday, I just kinda remembered that at one point last night, but I can make it work,” Beca answers, not able to hide the soft smile as she looks at Chloe.

“You sure?” Chloe’s response is just as vulnerable as her last, and Beca quickly nods as best she can lying down.

“I want to be beside you as much as physically possible. I mean, my ideal plan is like… we fly to Florida this afternoon, and on Thursday morning you fly up to New York with me and I do the talk show circuit that night then we fly back to Florida overnight…” Beca trails off, scrunching her nose up, “god, that sounds so stupid spoiled bitch of me.”

“What, why?” Chloe asks, surprised.

“I don’t know, just… so many flights, and wanting to waste a day of your time just so I don’t have to be states away from you again. I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

“No, Becs, it’s not stupid. I feel the same, you know, I don’t think I could stand being not with you for a little while. I’ll do the day up in New York with you,” Chloe reassures, softly, watching as Beca squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, sighing, before opening them again and looking straight at Chloe’s.

“I fucking love you so much, Chlo. I don’t know how to express that with as much intensity as I feel. I just…” Beca reaches out, cupping Chloe’s cheek with her hand, starting a gentle stroking pattern with her thumb.

“You could write a song about it?” Chloe jokes, quickly, blinking back tears, and Beca laughs lightly. “I love you too, Becs. It’s kind of crazy. It’s going to take me a little while to… settle into this. I don’t remember how to be this happy. I don’t think I ever have been.”

* * *

“Oh, fuck, paparazzi,” Beca mutters, her grip on the steering wheel tightening as they approach the shopping precinct containing the store they were heading for. She’d done the thing she hated doing, getting her management to call ahead to the store and threatening them with legal action if they told anyone she was coming. It was a real threat, so she’s pretty sure the paparazzi weren’t because of them, but they were still goddamn annoying.

“So what happens now?” Chloe asks, twisting her head to the side slightly to glance into Beca’s rear view mirror, seeing two black vans – one with a media network logo on the side – quickly coming up behind them.

“Well, depends whether you mind having a bunch of pictures taken in a minute or so,” Beca sighs.

“I really am serious about needing a new mattress. I mean, I loved sharing a bed with you again, but my body did not need to be this stiff today,” Chloe responds, with a shrug, and Beca nods.

“Wait for me to come and open your door so they don’t ambush you.”

Chloe does just that, suddenly feeling a little nervous about her first encounter with these guys as she sees them approach while Beca walks around the front of the car. She takes Beca’s hand to help her out of the car, choosing to look down at the ground away from the clicking cameras and let Beca guide her to the store.

“Chloe! How do you feel about Beca’s song?”

“Beca, is Chloe your girlfriend now?”

“Beca is it true you’re suing Justin Timberlake?” (that particular one earning a “what the fuck for, I haven’t met the dude” in response from Beca)

“Already broken a mattress, girls?”

Chloe can’t help but shiver uncomfortably at the last comment, glad they finally step inside the store and leave the men and their cameras outside. Granted, they’re still taking photos through the glass, but at least they’ve shut up.

“You did good. Sorry they’re so… gross,” Beca reassures her, shaking her head as she finishes. “Anyway. Mattresses. Where do we start?”

It takes them a while – an hour, to be exact – of flitting around the large showroom, between differently structured, sprung and topped mattresses; awkwardly sitting on some, lying on others; before they find one they’re both happy with. Beca organises delivery, and then, once they’re back in the car – thankfully, no longer with anyone following them –, calls on an assistant to take the delivery, since they’re planning on being away.

Chloe reaches for her own phone while Beca drives, pulling up the Bellas chat to see that Amy and Stacie are evidently having fun googling her and Beca, Amy now sharing all the photos of them inside the mattress store.

“ _I know Beca’s lazy, but sleeping in public???_ ” she captions one, of the two girls lying on a mattress, heads turned to face each other as they discussed whether it was right for them. It wasn’t, but Chloe saves the photo anyway and switches over to her own Instagram.

“ _Three years later and Beca still hadn’t bought herself a decent mattress… Lucky I’m here. Thanks for the picture, paparazzi! #ThingsToGetUsedTo_ ” she writes her own caption, hitting post and looking back up, quickly remembering when she sees the back of an airport outside that they’re about to travel much further than across LA.

There was, usefully, a flight directly to Orlando leaving half an hour after they got to the airport, and it had no one booked in first class. Chloe tries not to react when she steps into the plane with Beca, just like she tried not to react when they skipped the usual security lines and went straight into a dedicated private lounge, but she hears Beca give an almost sad laugh as they slide into their – very large – seats, across the aisle from each other as there were only 4 first class seats on this plane anyway.

“Unfortunately, flying still sucks even with leg room, better food and no chance of crying infants,” Beca’s tone is a little frustrated, and Chloe looks across at her in surprise.

“Really? You still hate flying this much?” She asks, remembering back to how much Beca freaked out on every single flight they’d ever been on together, especially the two long-hauls they’d endured from America to Europe for the Worlds and USO tour. She’d thought world tours might have got her used to it all.

“I’ve flown so much now but I still firmly believe humans belong on the ground,” Beca’s response is determined, and Chloe can’t help but give a teasing laugh as the plane starts taxiing and Beca’s hand tightens on the arm rest.

Chloe would love to jump over and share Beca’s seat with her, but unfortunately rules still apply in this part of the plane, and she reluctantly lets the force of take-off push her back into her own seat, eyes ahead instead of towards her girlfriend. Of course, as soon as they hit cruising altitude, she unsnaps her seatbelt and shifts over, loosely shoving Beca to the side so she has room to sit down.

“Wow, you want to take away my space?” Beca fakes annoyance, arms wrapping loosely around Chloe as they settle comfortably against each other. “Thanks,” she adds, softly, sighing happily when she receives a soft kiss to her cheek in response.

Beca worries when they finally disembark the plane and quickly head for Chloe’s car, suddenly hit with the realisation that she’d just kind of assumed she’d stay with Chloe, and maybe that’s weird or maybe she has housemates and she should have asked-

“What’s up?” Chloe asks, eyes quickly flitting over to glance at Beca before she looks back at the road, now navigating them out of the airport.

“I dunno, just…” she trails off, not sure whether it would be weirder to continue assuming, or to voice her concerns.

“I know you’re worrying about something, baby, and I’m not sure what, but whatever it is you’ll make work. We’ll make it work. It’ll be fine,” Chloe reassures her, although Beca kind of loses her concentration at the casual pet name, her heart rushing with affection. Deciding that she can just go along with it, Beca gives a small hum in acknowledgement before leaning back and looking over to watch Chloe drive.

Between the flight, the time difference, and the traffic leaving the airport, it’s late by the time they reach Chloe’s apartment. Late enough that Beca is too tired to acknowledge her awkwardness, instead following Chloe to her bedroom as soon as they enter the building, both girls curled up under covers seemingly within moments of their arrival.

Chloe feels as if she’s just on the edge of sleep when her phone rings, vibrating jarringly against the bedside table and causing her to mumble in annoyance as she forces one eye halfway open, an arm lazily snaking out from the covers to reach for the device. She flips it over, trying to stop it slipping against the wood as she squints at the screen. It’s just one of her Florida friends – calling after midnight local time, of course – and she decides they can wait.

Evidently, they don’t agree, Chloe waking shortly before 9am the following morning to her apartment buzzer ringing obnoxiously in the hallway. She hears Beca grumbling beside her and shifting a pillow over her head, and Chloe sighs, reluctantly rolling herself out of the bed and padding out of the room to reach for the attached… phone, she guesses it is. She really doesn’t understand these things.

“Chloe Beale?” she manages to clear her voice of sleepiness before she replies.

“Chloe! It’s me! What the hell is happening with you?!” one of her classmates – Robyn – asks, her voice some combination of tense and excited that is further confused by the crackly microphone on the buzzer.

“Ugh, I got back in from California after midnight, you woke me up. You’re not gonna go away though, are you?” Chloe answers, letting her voice fall back into her grogginess as she rapidly blinks in some vague attempt to wake herself up a little more.

“Nope. I don’t care if you’re in pyjamas. Let me in.” Robyn is insistent, and Chloe lets out half a laugh, pressing the button to unlock the front door of the apartment building. She rushes back into her bedroom, quickly whispering an explanation to Beca, reassuring her that she doesn’t need to get out bed and Chloe will just pretend she isn’t here or something, before pulling a hoodie on over her pyjama shirt and returning to the living room, just as she hears insistent knocking on her apartment door.

“Before 9? Really? How did you know I’m back, anyway, stalker?” Chloe asks as she opens the door and lets Robyn in, both of them heading straight for the dining table and taking a seat. She’s not Bellas close to Robyn, but of anyone in Florida, she’s her closest friend, and she might actually miss her when she leaves.

“Snap map. Didn’t see you here, actually, just that it said you were moving very quickly across Texas. I was surprised, actually, thought you’d hang around in California with her for a while? Or did it not work out?” Robyn’s questions are pointed, and Chloe rolls her eyes.

“No, it worked out. It was always going to. I…” Chloe trails off, sighing, before she continues, “I’m moving to California to be with her. Thought I may as well sort everything out sooner rather than later. She’s busy with promo the next couple weeks, anyway.”

“Really? Immediately? Like, moving in with her?!” Robyn responds just as Chloe has expected, surprised, a little judgemental, and much too loud for her liking given her sleeping – hopefully – girlfriend in the next room.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Chloe turns the question back, with a raised eyebrow, knowing that Robyn will give many reasons due to her slight omission of details about her relationship with Beca since they’d stopped talking.

“I mean, you were only kind of friends, right? And you’ve not seen her for three years, and she might be super into you but do you like her as much? Would you even say you love her? Sure her gesture was huge but you’re normally so hesitant with relationships-“ Robyn cuts herself off abruptly, shrugging.

“Might it have occurred to you that me being hesitant with potential relationships the last few years was because I was hopelessly in love with a girl who had mysteriously cut contact with me but was still always in the back of my mind because her voice was everywhere?” Chloe asks, a teasing lilt to her voice as she grins slightly.

“Well, no, I didn’t think you were ever that close to her?” Robyn pushes, confused, and Chloe shakes her head and bites back her lip, holding back a smile.

“I might have omitted some… details… about her. We were extremely close. We were dancing around the line between best friends and dating for at least five years, but neither of us would admit we wanted more. She cut off contact with me when she started releasing music because all her songs were about me and she was scared about my react-“

“Wait, all her songs are about you?” Robyn’s eyes widen in surprise, and Chloe nods. “Like, all the sappy ones? The almost happened ones? The jealousy ones?”

“All of them,” Chloe confirms, “except the kind of meaningless party ones, of course, those were label-required. Except, really, they’re tangentially about me because she hated most of the whole partying thing and I always had to drag her out.”

“So did she like… write them all?”

“Yep.”

“Wow. If I were you I’d be freaking the fuck out, dude.”

“It’s not news to me that they’re about me. And yeah, Beca’s closed off and reserved sometimes, but we got to a point where she wasn’t with me. The Beca I knew for almost a decade is a little different to the image you get of the famous Beca Mitchell,” Chloe explains, with a shrug, watching as Robyn sits and processes for a while.

“Has she changed, though? I mean I guess you’ve only been with her for a couple days, but like, if you were that close to her maybe you’d know?” She pushes, finally, Chloe nodding to acknowledge the question.

“She hasn’t changed at all. I mean, she’s a little more confident in front of people she doesn’t know, I guess, but otherwise she’s just… my Beca. Just like I’ve always known her,” Chloe responds, letting her voice turn affectionate, looking down as she feels her cheeks flush.

“So, you going to leave all us vet school people and go be a celebrity now, I guess?” Robyn shifts the conversation, slightly, and Chloe would be mildly offended if she didn’t pick up the joke behind the question.

“An accidental celebrity, I guess, yeah. Hard not to be, dating her. I’m still like… going to be a vet though. Just gotta find a new job over there. And I guess… yeah, I’ll be physically leaving all the group here, but I mean I’ve physically left all my undergrad friends and that doesn’t mean I’m not friends with them anymore. But hey, I’ll be back here for graduation I guess?”

“Think she’d ever come here, like for your graduation or whatever, or too busy?” Robyn’s question comes with an eyebrow raised, evidently assuming the latter, and Chloe has to bite back a laugh.

“I’d be a pretty shitty girlfriend if I wasn’t here for her graduation,” Beca’s voice interrupts Chloe before she can start, and Chloe quickly glances between the other two girls now in the room as Beca smirks and Robyn’s face rapidly cycles through a stream of emotions. “Sorry, I couldn’t get back to sleep and thought I should let you guys know I can hear everything you’re saying. But for the record, I’m not here… Robyn, right?” Beca adds, directing her attention across the table as she wanders over and leans against Chloe’s chair.

“Oh, right, introductions,” Chloe quickly snaps in to action, gesturing between the two, “Robyn, this is my girlfriend, Beca. Becs, this is my best friend in vet school, Robyn.”

“Um, hi, Beca, what do you mean you’re not here?” Robyn asks, and Beca shrugs as she shifts a hand onto Chloe’s shoulder, still leaning against the back of the chair. Chloe inwardly prays that the rush of affection she feels at the action isn’t outwardly visible.

“Paparazzi and stuff. My life is much easier when they think I’m holed up in my apartment when I’m actually in a different city,” she explains, Robyn giving an understanding nod before the three fall into an awkward silence for a moment. “Um, I’m not functional without coffee in the morning so I’m gonna…” Beca starts, motioning towards the kitchen across the room and the coffee maker. “Either of you want one?”

“Oh, I’ll take one. Do you remember how to use it? It’s our old-“

“I know, Chlo, that coffee machine was my best friend in Brooklyn, how could I forget it?”

“Of course.”


	4. The Day Apart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> falling back into my "if I delay it long enough the next chapter will write itself" aesthetic but apparently that still doesn't work, so have chapter 4 with a big question mark on chapter 5 still oops

On Thursday morning, Beca reluctantly calls a driver from her label’s team to the airport by herself, leaving Chloe to continue sorting out everything she needed to in Florida. They had wanted to go to New York together – hell, Beca had dreamed up an insanely cheesy date at the café near their old apartment in Brooklyn she wanted to take her on and everything – but it just made more sense for Chloe to stay. That, and her vet school friends had been insistent they all had to have a meal together, and Beca didn’t want to intrude.

She hated flying private. The planes were smaller, every bit of turbulence and movement and elevation change causing her to jump and panic, felt ten times as strongly as when she managed to get on a commercial flight in some kind of jumbo jet. For some reason, there weren’t many commercial flights from Orlando to New York, so this time she had to accept it.

She trudged up the steps to the plane reluctantly after exiting the car on the tarmac, adding the fact that she had to climb goddamn stairs to get into this hell-vehicle to her mental list of why this sucked. Beca wasn’t always this grouchy when flying, to be fair, it’s just that getting on this plane today means that she was also flying a few thousand miles away from Chloe, and her heart couldn’t quite understand that this time, it was only for 24 hours.

She does actually need to prepare for the whirlwind press day she has to do before she can head south again, so she pulls out her computer and starts reading through the directions sent from producers and from her team. For some reason, she doesn’t feel much confidence that her manager will actually meet her at the airport as promised, despite the fact he’s never been late before. She takes it as a sign that her head is in way too weird of a place to be doing any of this right now. She wishes she could call in sick to promo.

Marcus is there, of course, and she’s whisked from the airport straight to the NBC studios to do the night shows circuit. Everything is pre-taped, and she’s kind of late because she didn’t want to leave before Chloe woke up, so she’s in some kind of designer outfit – a dress, for Jimmy Fallon’s show, first – and way more makeup than even 14-year-old goth phase Beca wore and standing backstage before she really realises what’s happening. She’s done these shows before, of course. She’s been on Fallon a couple of times, and he’s a pretty easy interviewer, so she shouldn’t be nervous.

She’s glad her hair is curled slightly this time, so it’s not damaged when she twists it around her fingers, fidgeting as she waits backstage. She feels so exposed after releasing this song, like she’s sharing secrets with the public for the first time, even though that was almost her whole first album and this isn’t new.

A stagehand gestures for her to walk out, unnecessarily, as Jimmy introduces her. She walks with more purpose than usual, out onto the stage, waving half-awkwardly at the cheering audience before she forces herself to give him a brief hug without shuddering and walks over to take a seat on the other side of his desk.

“Beca Mitchell! So nice to see you!” he starts, his voice higher than it ever is behind the cameras, and she nods.

“Thanks Jimmy, happy to be here,” she puts on her own publicity voice and tries not to inwardly cringe because she swears it’s a little more shaky than usual and please can he just get into the questions already so she doesn’t have to do awkward small talk?

“So, you dropped a surprise song on Sunday night! How long have you been planning that one for?” He asks, his voice rising in emphasis, and Beca laughs slightly, although mostly to try and ease herself into the whole thing a bit better.

“It was a bit of a surprise to me and the label too. I’ve been working on the new album for months and that’s coming sometime soon, but this song was only thought up a couple of weeks ago, and we worked very hard for a while to have it ready for Sunday night.”

“It was important it be Sunday night, was it?” he pushes, and she’s suddenly thankful for the makeup as she feels her cheeks heat up.

“Yeah, it was. Sunday was exactly three years since I cut contact with my best friend, and, well, if you’ve heard the song…” she trails off, grinning slightly as if making a joke, despite her comment not being particularly funny. Jimmy laughs anyway.

“You in contact with her again now?”

“When I got to work on Monday morning she was standing in my office, so, yes.”

“Close contact?” Jimmy’s tone shifts almost to teasing, prying for that confirmation out of her, and Beca presses her lips together in a subdued smile before she speaks.

“We’re dating now, yeah, and she’s moving to California. Which, um, sounds a bit weird and quick but, it’s over ten years since we met, and we were best friends that were so close to dating for many years before everything happened, so this is all kind of… just a small step from what we already were, it’s just that I hit pause on everything for three years,” Beca’s response is maybe more detailed than she wants it to be, but it seems to please Jimmy.

It’s not long later that he cuts to a commercial, and she has to shift over to the other side of the stage and get ready with a band – half her usual tour band, half others – to perform. It’s been a while since she had, a couple of months since she did a one-off little thing for a charity event in Los Angeles, but it all falls back into place in her mind as soon as the show is brought back from commercial and her song introduced. For now, she sings the radio version. She’s been too busy spending time with Chloe to get the extra verse sorted out.

After Fallon, she moves a couple of floors up the building – really, it’s convenient that all these shows film in the same place – to record an interview with Seth Meyers. He’s a story interviewer, for the most part, so it’s not hard for Beca to move the conversation from small talk about her song to something sillier, deciding to play up the thing with her crappy mattress and Chloe’s very quick insistence that it needed to be replaced. She doesn’t mention why she’d never got a better one in the first place, because it’s not the tone of the show.

Thankfully, that’s her last interview for the night, and after removing the – admittedly, really fucking nice – almost-suit she’d selected for the second interview and changing back in to her usual skinny jeans and flannel, quietly reflecting on and agreeing with Chloe’s assurance that she hadn’t changed at all in the last 3 years, she quickly finds her way back into a car and back to her hotel, ending the conversation she had been holding with Chloe via text all afternoon and throwing herself into bed before she had to do it all over again on the morning shows tomorrow. The morning shows that were the main reason Chloe wasn’t here beside her.

She cursed those morning shows all night as she tossed and turned, trying to ignore the emptiness she felt around her and the ache in her heart, never quite getting to the point of sleep.

At least her makeup artist managed to make twice as much makeup as the previous night appear like a light, natural look, and the morning shows were equally light and easy, allowing her to breeze through comments about how she was happy to be with Chloe again and that her new album would be announced properly in the not-too-distant future. Soon enough, she was again clambering up the steps of a private jet, only this time a little more eagerly.

* * *

Chloe had desperately wanted to accompany Beca to New York. Sure, a little bit because she wanted to see what all the promo stuff was actually like and she wasn’t opposed to seeing her girlfriend all done up in TV-ready hair and makeup, but mostly it was just… hard.

She knows it’s different this time, but last time Beca jumped on a plane away from her, she cut contact with her. She knows it’s different this time, rationally, and her constant texting back and forth with Beca helps, but she’s still getting used to the sudden change and she carries anxious tension in her shoulders all day as she sorts through another room in her house, trying to work out what’s worth taking to California.

Her kitchen had been an easy one to sort through with Beca yesterday, quickly deciding that pretty much everything she could just donate to somewhere, because Beca had everything already. Except the coffee machine, of course. Beca had a much fancier one, but insisted their Brooklyn early-morning staple had to move with Chloe, and she didn’t argue that, instead taking quiet and surprised pleasure in the fact that Beca apparently cared about sentimental value, now. Sentimental value for their lives together. Chloe was very okay with keeping that coffee machine forever too.

She didn’t have too much stuff scattered around the rest of the house – a lot of books, yeah, but other than a special few, these were donation candidates too – because she’d not felt the need to accumulate much in the last few years, nor had she had time to. Overloading her vet school courses, plus working on and off throughout it all, had well and truly kept her occupied, even when her social life was considerably quieter than it had been since, well, ever.

Her clothes were going to be the hardest, of course. It was the one area where she had considerably more than she’d ever needed, and she thought it was a good opportunity to cut down a little. Maybe. It was hard, though, when her head was racing with uncertainty about everything for no reason in particular, and she couldn’t seem to make a concrete decision on anything.

Nearing the evening, she gave up, throwing almost everything into a “maybe” pile in the living room so her bed was free to fall into when she got back from dinner. Admittedly, she wasn’t super keen on this dinner, knowing it was going to be entirely focussed on grilling her for information about Beca – whether that was about her and Beca or about award-winning singer-songwriter Beca Mitchell, she wasn’t sure – and silently or maybe vocally judging her rapid departure from Florida, but she couldn’t really say no. And as quick as it was, at least Chloe knows that everything about this is considered. She can’t control whether the others believe that or not.

She finds something halfway decent to put on – they’re just going to some little café, nowhere fancy, they are students after all – and tries to do her makeup in the crappy bathroom lighting, before reluctantly moving back to her bedroom to risk spillage onto the carpet (she’s kinda clumsy with her hands sometimes, okay?) for the sake of better blending.

She’s about to walk out the door, past the TV in the rough attempt at a living room space, when she has a thought. She knows what shows Beca is on tonight. Sure, she’d tell her what she says if she asks, and some of it will be online, but…

Ten minutes of wrestling with the remote later, her TV is set to record the two evening shows Beca is going to be on tonight, and she’s rushing out to her car. Of course, she’s usually early much more than she is late, so her ten-minute detour in her living room gets her to the café about the same time as the others, a fact she is kind of grateful of, because it means they’re focussing on each other more so than just her. For a while, at least.

“So Chloe…” Steph starts, as soon as they’ve placed their orders, “what the hell happened?”

“I’m not really sure what you’re asking me,” Chloe responds, suddenly feeling every mild discomfort she’s ever had with this people come to the surface. They’re… friends, sure, but not close enough for an interrogation. Maybe. Are they? The Bellas did this a lot, but it always felt like they did it because they cared, not because they wanted information for their own reasons. And maybe these people cared too, but she just-

“Oi, Chloe,” Robyn grabs her attention, drawing her out of the thoughts she’d fallen into.

“Sorry, head went somewhere else,” she mumbles an apology, turning back to Steph, but not saying any more.

“How on earth did you end up with Beca Mitchell writing a song about you?” Steph asks, exasperated, and Chloe shrugs.

“I pestered her to join an acapella group in her Freshman year then spent close to eight years as her best friend that was always right on the line between friends and dating. Also, more than one song, a lot of her songs are about me,” she explains, deciding that the best way to fight off her hesitance is to play herself up a little. She’s grateful when they all laugh at her efforts, and when Robyn makes an agreeing noise.

“Why now though? Have you quietly been talking to her this whole time you’ve been here and just not told us or?” Abbie pushes another question, and Chloe shakes her head.

“Not long after she got the record deal and moved to LA she just cut contact with me. I mean, we were in the middle of a conversation about a new Mexican food place she found in LA or something ridiculous like that, and suddenly she’d just blocked me on everything, and no one seemed to know why. When she released her first song I tried not to listen to it because I was kind of angry at her… but Aubrey made me, and it was so obviously about me, and I figured that might’ve been why. She wasn’t good at feelings, she was awkward and scared of rejection...” Chloe keep explaining, bringing them up to date on the last 48-odd hours.

“So, moving to California? That’ll be fun,” Robyn, who is apparently pretending she didn’t crash Chloe’s apartment for an hour the previous morning, prompts when she’s finished. Their meals arrive at that moment, and Chloe pauses and waits for everyone to get sorted with the right meals before she answers.

“I mean, it’d probably be kind of terrifying under any other condition, but I like change and living with her feels very normal, so yeah.”

“I bet she’s got a nice place,” Abbie comments, and Chloe shrugs.

“Technically, I guess, but she’s just one very small person who’s kind of isolated herself, so it feels kind of empty at the moment, I’m going to work on that,” Chloe brushes off what they’re clearly asking for. She isn’t surprised when Steph lightly punches her arm.

“Come on, dude, spill. You’ve been to her place, clearly. Fancy? Doorman? Private elevator? Views? Is it huge?” she pries, and Chloe sighs.

“It’s a 2-bedroom place, it’s kind of large but not excessively so, the building has a doorman but that’s not that crazy in LA, the elevator is shared with the building, it mostly has views of the other tall buildings around it. She has a really nice kitchen though, it’s like… the size of the main area in my apartment, and proper wood counters that I will always argue are better than marble, double oven…” she trails off. “She has money, yeah, but she’s not flashy with it. She’s not that kind of person. She hates attention, and she almost turned down the record deal in the first place, so.”

“Wow, seriously? Why would she turn that down?”

“She always wanted to make music, not to be in the spotlight. She’s immensely private, I mean, you can probably guess that from how little she says publicly anyway, so it’s… yeah. She’s talented, though. Always knew she’d make it.”

“She does seem kind of quiet when she does interviews and stuff, as soon as she’s singing she kind of goes crazy though,” Steph comments, around a mouthful of food, the others rolling their eyes at her pointedly. “Shut up, I’m being social and I’m hungry.”

“Okay, firstly, gross,” Robyn starts, “but yeah, she’s seemed that way to me too, and whenever you mentioned knowing of her but not knowing her well, Chlo, I kind of got that vibe too… She’s not like that with you though?”

“Not at all. She tried to be when we first met, but I uh… so the second time I saw her, I kind of ambushed her when she was singing in some dorm showers?”

Their conversation continues as they eat their meals, and it gradually shifts from Beca to Chloe and her departure, and when they tell her they’re going to miss her, she’s kind of sad too. Vet school is intense, and they’ve been a good group of people to spend it with. They all hug when they leave, the others lingering as long as they can with Chloe, until arriving Ubers and bus schedules pull them away, until just Robyn is left.

“I know you aren’t as close to anyone here as you are with the Bellas and all, but I hope you won’t disappear forever. Keep in touch, you know? And tell us how that final course is, because I’m dreading a big research hell at the end of so much later-year prac.”

“Oh, I’ll keep in touch, I always do. I’m not the type to let friendships drift apart. And I totally will, I think it’s just going to be a heap of reading. I don’t mind research though, I was a… kind of arts undergrad,” Chloe shrugs, Robyn nodding, before almost awkwardly reaching out to hug her. Chloe isn’t awkward as she returns the hug, and she gives Robyn a wide small before they split into their own cars.

Chloe wants to be sensible when she gets home and just head for bed, especially given her sofa is covered in piles of clothing, but she can’t really help it. She sits on the floor in front of the TV as she flicks it on and brings up the shows she recorded, skipping through for Beca’s interviews, and on Jimmy Fallon, the performance she’d apparently forgotten to tell Chloe about. She feels her eyes grow misty as she watches her girlfriend openly talk about her on national TV, but it’s okay, because when she goes to bed a few minutes later, it’s with a comfortable warmth over her. Beca might not be there, but her words are, and that’s enough of a substitute just for one night.


End file.
